Replying to my self is one of the signs, I know. But I keep thinking of the Phase Linear autocorrelator that was sold to help eliminate dust noise and pops.
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Thanks for the welcome @pennstac 
I am very tempted lately, but I must admit the thought of buying an analogue copy off a digital master sort of spoils it for me… there are some direct to disc cuts though aren’t there… ouch expensive and I’d probably be scared to play them! 
I’m actually lurking here for all the headphone stuff, I’ve been circling around some Schiit recently, but it’s got away… there doesn’t seem to be any about right now, this side of the pond anyway? Typical I should decide my RME ADI-2 DAC/amp is actually quite boring just at this moment in time (it’s great as a DAC in the main system though!).
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I agree - no analog copies of digital masters. My Bifrost 2 can do that just fine.
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That’s an intriguing idea. The sound on laserdisc was digital but the video was analogue. No reason you couldn’t do this (other than lack of demand of course).
We didn’t? I had a record cleaner and de-gausser in the mid 70s. One of the biggest reasons I quickly moved to CDs was because I didn’t need to use those anymore. Of course I’d make a high quality tape of my records anyway and play that over and over. Don’t want to wear out the vinyl “master” you know. 
Just for clarity, am I reading right that some people think a 16/44 .wav file or a CD is sonically superior to a 16/44 .flac file?
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You must have moved in different circles than I did in the early to mid 70s. I think there was a manual record washer like I have now. We had staticmaster brushes that degaussed. I remember articles discussing how to clean records. I guess there were some vacuums.
I don’t get the 16/44 thought. Uncompressed 16/44 is uncompressed 16/44 to me.
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Oh I see. You meant some kind of fully automatic record washing machine. I did not have that. I had a Discwasher hand held record cleaner and a “gun” (can’t remember the brand) that removed the static electricity and associated pops.
I’m saying uncompressed 16/44 (either CD or .wav) compared to 16/44 .flac which is compressed.
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Yes, I know the FLAC file is compressed but it’s not lossy. Restoration of the signal is a fast process. I have not heard criticism before that FLAC (or ALAC) 16/44 signal differs significantly from WAV. Is that what they are claiming? Who are these masked men with golden ears?
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Honestly no one said it explicitly, but there were a couple of posts that hinted at it. One of which was yours but I’m obviously misreading it or you wouldn’t be as confused as I am. 
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I still use my old mix tapes a bunch, they sound like crap but the music will be lost otherwise…I really enjoy my Roon in combination with Quboz, Tidal and Roon radio, never before have i had such a diversified and pleasing musical listening experience. I am almost done converting my entire CD library to FLAC on my server.
My biggest issue with all this is that i travel and only have Access to a small selection of songs on my phone and access to the internet is often limited or non-existent on almost all my flights and many locations i visit. Also, losing internet at home is common, for a short while or sometimes many hours. In my case no interne means NO access to the server which equals no ability to play any music currently, herre is no cd player hooked up and no backups to the music library somewhere i can access it…That sucks and annoys me. I am also very cognizant of the fact that i don’t have a proper safe and secure back-up of my owned songs or music libraries. Add to this a normal cost of just over $250 per month for Home internet access, cellular access, Roon, Tidal and Quboz and the cost of being all digital and “connected” is starting to get really out of hand and possibly unsustainable once into my retirement or even if a Particularly ugly health event occurs…Hell, the more i think about it if you add Amazon, Netflix, and the occasional HBO or Starz channel entertainment costs total about $300 monthly, that’s $3600 yearly. FML, maybe i should get into records…
Oh yeah, as an answer to the question, i have bigger issues than just the format wars but those suck too!
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Oh yes I remember the gun! All I had was a sort of hand held flat brush, black velvet with it’s own case - you could run that round the grooves umpteen times and still find dust… oh and a little bristle just before the stylus? Or am I imagining that… I haven’t had a record deck since the Pioneer PL12D in the 70’s. I was out of hifi for a few years, then bought a NAD cassette tape deck (for all those self recorded Top of the Pops tapes) and a CD player in early 80’s I think.
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Now I did run an experiment when I first started streaming back in the noughties. With my Squeezebox I was sure I could hear a difference between FLAC and WAV files so we did a blind test by sending through a shuffled playlist of several versions of a few files (boy did I get fed up with Katie Melua ‘crawling up a hill’ - ruined that song for me!) and I could easily tell FLAC from WAV.
There were big arguments on various forums (of course) and eventually after all the naysayers proved conclusively the reassembled files were bit identical we figured out the only possible cause. If I remember right the conversion to whatever the Squeezebox natively played could either be done at the server end or in the Squeezebox itself, I had the latter working. When we switched to server conversion there was no difference at all - we sort of opinionated it might be the little Squeezebox getting very busy digitally and causing noise, Slim Devices swore it wasn’t the conversion itself as that was identical wherever it was performed. Anyway - it wasn’t the files, but it did cause a little head scratching for a while there!
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Wow! That’s a huge cost - I think my home access to broadband/telephone/Qobuz and Roon is around £65pm but I’ve not had an outage for months and I get around 65Mbits I think. All my own rips are on a little £150 eBay sourced second hand NUC 5 with Roon Rock and they stream to a couple of Raspberry Pi’s - I only need wifi working to listen to my own files if the internet goes down. Of course occasionally nothing will play ball and it’s switch off and switch in again… I too fancy a CD player again, just for when I fancy some actual physical media! Maybe an old multi-bit for a change in the usual sound?
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A tiny solid state 1TB external drive costs under $150:
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Storage Media, Spinning HDD or SSD, has gotten to be so cheap that it is really simple to have on-site & backup for all your media.
I’ve got about 15 TB of storage being used for playing & backup of Music, Video & Data Archives.
Mark Gosdin
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The gun was a “ZeroStat”
The velvet and fluid was Discwasher
The brush was StaticMaster
Various companies made record cleaning arms that were like a tone arm with a brush at the end.
All still available today.
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This has been great reading everyone’s perspectives on this area. Fascinating!
I think I’ve figured out a new paradigm that will work for me today, and going forward (for now). Qobuz for streaming and purchases of hi-rez files at discounted rates, and a bit of a surprise for me… vinyl! As I mentioned at the beginning, I didn’t grow up on vinyl but rather CD’s, got rid of my CD collection when I transitioned to the iPod and ripped my CDs many years ago, and thought I’d be done with buying music because of CD-quality streaming. Oh, it could be simple nostalgia (but that nostalgia bug can bite HARD!), but I find that that tangible thing many hear talk about? It’s kinda real. But since I already have the files from Qobuz, the purchase of a few used albums today from a record store was a combination of a number of visceral, sensory sensations that I found I liked: flipping through a used stack of albums not knowing what would be there and finding a few nice surprises. The SIZE of the pictures (better for the tangible thing than CDs)… and reading through the liner notes (Roon IS great, but still not as visceral as holding/reading an album)… the whole experience, killing a casual hour in my day this way was a joy, and not repeatable in nearly the same way by browsing Qobuz’s digital storefront.
And the thing is… I don’t even have a turntable, and don’t (think) I want to go down that rabbit hole. What I think I’ll do is enjoy this analog experience, and just buy a few of my absolute favorite albums of all time, one or two albums every now or then, never breaking the bank, and enjoy it on that level. If I do go deeper down the analog rabbit hole great… but I don’t think I have to and I like this equilibrium I’ve found for myself.
Gonna go place my newly purchased, but used ($2!!) copy of The Staples Singers in my listening room and read through the liner notes as I listen to it from Qobuz.
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I’m quite sure you have received a bunch of responses already regarding the use of the AV receiver as a headphone amp, I will lay it out a bit more clear for you. You should consider a dedicated headphone amp, you can take your same source and DAC chain and feed it into a headphone amp.
Keep the Sundara, change your amp. Schiit Magni is a good start.
This gave me a good chuckle!
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Sounds like you are on a awesome music journey! This has been a really fun thread to read through. I still have all my cds from the 25 years or so I bought them, and they get some playtime occasionally in my 5 disc player. I have recently found the experience of utilizing the BlueSound Nodi 2i to be pretty enjoyable when streaming hi -res music through Qobuz or Amazon music HD from my 2-Channel setup. When I am working at my desk I am usually streaming hi -res as well through those two platforms or skipping high res and discovering music through Spotify at times.
I also enjoy Vinyl and like you buy some of my favorite records from time to time. As a visual artist I appreciate the photographs and artwork on the albums as the larger sleeves for the vinyl means larger and more visually appealing artwork to me than 
CD’s.
There is also something very special about putting on a record with my daughter and sitting back and watching her stair at the record spin and the wonder in her eyes as the music plays through the speakers, that has also become very close to my heart.
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One thing about all the formats including LP’s, CD’s, Reel to Reel, downloads, streaming most of the time it comes down to the overall quality of the complete system and the quality of the music your listening to.,. I thought I had a halfway decent system but holy crap when I heard my friends system and all the formats I listed, I felt like, well putting a huge bag over my system when I got home . System matching components is so important along with the room acoustics (treatments) if you are not using headphones. About as close to live I’ve ever been without being there. Each format just blew me away. A real pleasure. So enjoy what ya have.
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